John Lapp ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure effort that aired an ad attacking the Republican and independent candidates for a New York congressional seat won that night by Democrat Kathy Hochul.

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And Ali Lapp, his wife, directed the efforts of House Majority PAC, an outside group that ran a similar TV spot attacking the Republican in the race, Jane Corwin, for supporting Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.

The ads, which ran within days of each other, cited the same line from a Wall Street Journal article asserting the plan “would essentially end Medicare,” but Ali Lapp says she and her husband never discussed their advertising strategies. “John and I have a very simple rule – we don’t talk about House campaigns that John is working on,” Ali Lapp said in an email.

What the Lapps describe as their careful exercise in non-communicativeness is not unusual in the close-knit, and heavily regulated, world of big-money Beltway campaign politics, especially this cycle, when both sides are fully embracing so-called “super PACs” like Ali Lapp’s that can solicit donations from corporations and individuals without the limits put on parties and candidates.

Under Federal Election Commission rules, Ali Lapp and anyone from her super PAC are forbidden from “coordinating” with party committees or candidates, leading to a complicated social etiquette in which the operatives who run the groups winnow their Facebook friends, skip parties and avoid talking to their spouses so as not to trigger the rules – or give their opponents ammunition to accuse them of it.

But because political operatives tend to travel in the same professional and social circles (or, in the case of the Lapps, the same household), developing an intimate understandings of each other’s strategic approaches, it can appear from a lay perspective that they’re reading from the same playbook.

Take the Republican efforts in the New York special election, which drew a total $2.2 million in independent expenditures and likely foreshadowed a 2012 election season in which experts expect hundreds of millions of dollars in outside spending.

The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $425,000 on its own independent expenditure television ads attacking Hochul and Jack Davis, the independent candidate who ran on a tea party line. That was exceeded only by the $690,000 in television and online ads attacking the two from American Crossroads, a super PAC conceived by GOP strategist Karl Rove.

Five years ago, when the NRCC ran its biggest-ever independent expenditure advertising campaign, which totaled $80 million, Carl Forti managed it. This year, Forti is running American Crossroads.

The two massive air campaigns in the New York special were complemented by a $97,000 direct mail campaign boosting Corwin and opposing her rivals from American Action Network, a group that does not have to report its donors to the FEC. Since last month, the group, which is affiliated with American Crossroads, has been run by Brian Walsh, who served as the NRCC’s political director during last year’s election.

And there are plenty of ways for smart operatives to closely coordinate without triggering the rules.

For example, in the months before the 2010 midterm election, the NRCC took the extraordinary step of publicly releasing its advertising plans in targeted districts, allowing a coterie of big-money independent conservative groups – including American Action Network, American Crossroads and its sister-group Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies – to coordinate their own independent expenditure advertisements to complement the NRCC’s ads.

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CORRECTION: Corrected by: Vivyan Tran @ 05/31/2011 04:22 PM
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the request for an advisory opinion from the Federal Election Commission filed by House Majority PAC. It asked the FEC whether candidates, members of Congress and the administration and party officials could “solicit unlimited individual, corporate, and union contributions on behalf of (House Majority PAC and a sister group) without violating” election rules.